''Game Tested, Streets Approved'' is the third and final studio album by American rapper

Black Rob Robert Ross (June 8, 1968 – April 17, 2021), known professionally as Black Rob, was an American rapper who was signed to Sean "Puffy" Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment. He was best known for his 2000 single " Whoa!", which peaked at number 43 on ...

. It was released on July 26, 2011, through

Duck Down Music Duck Down Music Inc is a New York City based record label, talent management, music-marketing, and consulting company founded by Drew "Dru-Ha" Friedman and Kenyatta "Buckshot" Blake in 1995. In Duck Down's 20-year existence, the company has rel ...

. The album was produced by Coptic, Buckwild, David Shapiro,

DJ Pain 1 Pacal Alejandro Bayley (born October 21, 1983), better known by his stage name DJ Pain 1, is an American record producer and DJ from Madison, Wisconsin. He has produced for artists including Young Jeezy, 50 Cent, Schoolboy Q, Ludacris, Lil Baby, ...

D'Mile Dernst "D'Mile" Emile II (born January 24, 1985) is an American record producer and songwriter from Brooklyn, New York City. He received his first production credits on Rihanna's 2005 album ''Music of the Sun'', as well as Mary J. Blige's '' The ...

, Gerald "Soul G." Stevens, Jermaine Washington, Self, Spank, Young McFly, and Black Rob, who also served as executive producer with Jemal Mosley. It features a lone guest appearance from

Sean Price Sean Duval Price (March 17, 1972August 8, 2015) was an American rapper and member of the hip hop collective Boot Camp Clik. He was one half of the duo Heltah Skeltah, performing under the name Ruck, along with partner Rock. Early life and edu ...

. The album peaked at number 44 on the ''Billboard''

Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip-hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, ...

in the United States.

Background

The album was his first since '' The Black Rob Report'', which was released six year earlier in 2005. Shortly after the release of that album, Black Rob was sentenced to seven years in prison for grand larceny and served four years of that sentence before being released in 2010. After his release from prison, Rob cut ties with his previous label

Bad Boy Records Bad Boy Entertainment, doing business as Bad Boy Records, is an American independent record label. The label was founded in 1993 by rapper and record producer Sean Combs. During the mid-1990s, the label signed hip-hop and contemporary R&B, R&B a ...

and signed a deal with independent rap label, Duck Down Music Inc. and began work on ''Game Tested, Streets Approved''.

Critical reception

''Game Tested, Streets Approved'' was met with generally favorable reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a

normalized Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science * Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations * Normalization model, used in ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 62, based on five reviews. Daniel Oh of ''RapReviews'' found "no visible rust on ''Game Tested, Streets Approved'', Rob's first album in six years". In his mixed review, David Amidon of ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...

'' wrote: "ultimately, ''Game Tested & Street Approved'' is all about tracks three through eight, with the rest of it meandering through various forms of decent and straight up awful". Mark Lelinwalla of '' XXL'' wrote: "with his gruff tone and no-nonsense flow, Rob holds down 14 tracks with only one guest appearance without any problems". Amanda Bass of ''

HipHopDX ''HipHopDX'' is an online magazine of Hip hop music, hip hop music criticism and news. ''HipHopDX'' has over 3.5M monthly readers, the website encompassing hip hop news, interviews, music, and reviews. The website's founder and CEO is Sharath C ...

'' resumed: "there is more to Black Rob than " Whoa," but there is nothing that quite lives up to it on ''Game Tested, Streets Approved''".

Track listing

Personnel

*Robert "

" Ross — vocals, producer (tracks: 12, 13), executive producer *

— vocals (track 14) *Anthony " Buckwild" Best — producer (tracks: 1, 10) *Dernst "

" Emile II — producer (track 2) *Edward "Self Service" Hinson — producer (track 3), mixing *Jermaine "O.Z.10037" Washington — producer (track 4) *Nicholas "Young McFly" Greer — producer (track 5) *David Shapiro — producer (track 6) *Eric "Coptic" Matlock — producer (tracks: 7, 11, 14), mixing, A&R *M. "Spank" Gremillion — producer (track 8) *Gerald "Soul G." Stevens — producer (track 9) *Pacal "

" Bayley — producer (track 14) *Jemal Mosley — executive producer *

Drew "Dru-Ha" Friedman Drew "Dru Ha" Friedman is an American music and marketing executive based in New York City. Friedman is Co-Founder and CEO of Duck Down Music Inc., 3D Consulting & Distribution, General Manager for Cinematic Music Group, and former Director of ...

— associate executive producer *Kenyatta "

Buckshot A shotgun cartridge, shotshell, or shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) ammunition used specifically in shotguns. It is typically loaded with numerous small, spherical sub-projectiles called shot. Shotguns typically use a ...

" Blake — associate executive producer *Robert "

G Koop Robert Mandell, professionally known as G Koop, is an American Grammy Award-nominated record producer, songwriter and musician. Early life G Koop is originally from Boston, Massachusetts. His father had a large collection of albums, and his moth ...

" Mandell — guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion *Joseph "Bishop" Gallo — engineering, mixing *Matt Castillo — engineering assistant *Noah Friedman — project coordinator

Charts

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2011 albums Black Rob albums Duck Down Music albums Albums produced by D'Mile Albums produced by Buckwild